tales of golden spun half truths
by McChanged
Summary: She holds herself like a girl who knows when she's being lied to, and he wants to believe her. She doesn't know them, doesn't know a damn thing about Dean, but god does he just want to believe her.


I should be updating my other stories. I should be outside swimming or skipping or something, _anything_. I should not be marathong the first season of _Dark Blue _because of the crappy Chicago weather, and then writing this. I don't expect lots of reviews, because really who actually watches this show. Anyway, it started out kind of bromancy and then, bam, the _if-you-squint-slashiness _reared its pretty little head. Eh.

12/10 - I've recently been posting on AO3 under the name _Mamihlapinatapai,_ and while doing such, have been doing some editing. Today, because I'm crazy, I've decided to update everything on here. The changes won't affect the story line, it's just to clean everything up a bit.

* * *

Ty knows Dean.

He knows he hates peanut M&Ms and will only take his coffee black when he's undercover.

He knows he can hit a moving target at 400 feet, and that wearing suits make him seem callous since his graduation day when he told his parents that no, he wasn't going to Berkeley and yes, that was a tattoo on his neck.

He knows he can spin a web of lies faster than most people can think about telling one, and that every time a half truth passes through his lips a piece of him burns away, like a wisp of smoke in a dark alley; can't see it, can't feel it, but you know it's there.

Ty knows that some of his scars (not all, of course, but _some_) are from one of the first times he went undercover; got blown by the guy who sold him his coffee at a shitty convience store and dropped contact.

It took him and Carter three hours to get him out.

He knows Dean would have sold his own soul to get out from underneath the suffocating stares of his parents. Ty thinks he probably did sell it. Traded outdoor footballs games at Thanksgiving for a gun that's constantly being used against him and a ball of lies so big it chokes him. (Not that Dean would even admit it. Ty knows that, too.)

He knows his partner would go to hell and back to protect them all, knows that by the time _all good_ crackles through the comm, that he'll be out the door with a shotgun in his hand and a new identity in his back pocket.

What Ty can't figure out, what makes him sit up in bed at night, fingers curled around his throat because it's closed and he can't _breathe_, is why Dean gets that look in his eye, sometimes.

He's tired of saving Dean from himself. Melissa is, too, from the look on her face when she tells him Carter's inside. But it's Dean and that's enough. Always has been.

Telling Carter that Dean has issues ripping off a mask he wears isn't exactly the most trust-worthy thing Ty's done. Dean made him promise after all, told him everything was _fine_ while they were doing paperwork. But Ty was panicked, fingers already twitching for his gun, head already spinning around a cover that they both knew was too closed to try and fit into again.

'Cause here's the thing: going undercover isn't as easy as slipping on new clothes and placing another driver's license into your wallet. He's known that since he started this job, but it's hard not to get rattled when you watch Dean, apple fucking pie, white picket fence _Dean_, roll a body out of a dirty bed sheet and not even bat an eyelash.

So, yeah. He tells Carter, and all hell breaks loose.

Shooting the new girl was, in retrospect, not the worst thing he's done, but he's pretty sure when Carter offered her the job he didn't exactly add _may get shot by co-workers_ into the spiel. He's feels sorry for half a second, then he gets what he needs, because Dean's neck deep in some shady shit and it probably won't be the first time he'll shoot her.

Welcome to the job.

Carter tells him to do surveillance, so he does. For about a minute. He spends the other two hours calculating the hundreds of ways he could get Dean the hell out of there without getting shot in the face and carving Dean's name into a bullet of his own.

So when the shot splits the night into a thousand different deadly scenarios, Ty bites through his tongue and doesn't notice.

000

This is a stupid plan. A stupid, dangerous, useless plan but when Carter has an idea you're much better off just running with it than standing around arguing about it. You'll end up doing it anyway.

He gets twitchy halfway through the carwash, because he knows Dean won't walk away, not from this, and the longer they stay the bigger the chance they'll end up finding Dean on some dusty side road with a bullet in his head.

(And maybe because he hasn't touched him in a month, but probably just the dying thing.)

000

When he tells Jaimie that she might have to shoot Dean because he'll shoot her first, she looks halfway to passing out but he won't apologize, won't recant.

Because he's seen Dean draw a gun, drunk and sleep deprived, faster than anybody at the range. He doesn't tell her that if it comes down to it he's half sure _he_ couldn't shoot Dean, because it _is_ her first day and he's still kind of sorry for the shooting her in the chest thing.

Turns out, Dean doesn't even glance at him in the bank. Points his gun at every single person in the room but him, and he's not sure if he should be relieved or worried.

It's Dean and _worried_ wins, hands down every fucking time.

000

Ty likes Jaimie, he really does. She holds her shit together well even while staring down the barrel of a gun held by a maybe flipped cop, but he's not interested in her opinion. She doesn't know them, doesn't know a damn thing about Dean, but wow does he really just want to believe her.

She presents herself like a girl who knows when she's being lied to, and he just wants to fucking believe her. He doesn't because she hasn't seen anything yet.

He's trained to notice things, to see things other people walk right by, things they block out to save the sliver of innocence they carry around like a badge.

So when Dean opens fire on the fucking FBI he should have noticed when the bullets punctured holes into hoods, into tires, instead of heads.

Dean doesn't miss.

But Ty doesn't notice, because he's still got that _look_ in his eye. Being around Dean is like having tunnel vision, and it'll probably get them killed one day.

0000

He drops his head, which is about the only that stops Ty from dropping _him_. (Which isn't ture, but Ty will still put it in his report because no one respects a cop who lets his feelings get in the way.)

Half relieved, half disappointed and Ty can't even breathe again. Because Franzine practically offered Dean twenty million dollars and a one-way trip to a country with no extradition treaty and Dean shot him in the shoulder. (But he didn't _want_ to, and what will stop him from taking the money next time, from running like he's been doing for half his life.)

He won't clap him on the back, or cuff the back of his neck, or twist his fingers in an already rumpled collar, later. Won't for a while, maybe, because he's still pissed beyond belief.

But, also, he's _relieved_, and hopeful, and kind of proud, so if Dean wants to make a joke and fist bump because he just shot a man, and his team spent unnecessary time worrying that he had stepped over the one line that Carter clearly drew and never crossed, then he'll grin back.

(Later, after he tells Melissa that he's going for a run and then maybe a beer and not to wait up and he loves her and yes he'll pick up milk, he'll find Dean on the floor of his bedroom with a pocket knife in one hand and a beer in the other. He'll half feign annoyance about stealing money from guys who kill for a living, and then they'll laugh because they both know he has his own loose floor board. It's complicated.

But what isn't with Dean.)


End file.
